Sixteen states filed this lawsuit against the federal government on September 6, 2017 in response to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memorandum issued on Sept. 5 ending Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The states seek to enjoin the federal government from carrying out ...
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Sixteen states filed this lawsuit against the federal government on September 6, 2017 in response to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memorandum issued on Sept. 5 ending Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The states seek to enjoin the federal government from carrying out portions of the DHS memorandum and from using information about DACA grantees gathered in their applications to enforce immigration policy. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

The complaint asserted that since its inception in 2012, DACA has protected approximately 800,000 young people from deportation. As the states described in their complaint, DACA allowed individuals brought to the United States as children who met specific criteria to request deferred action for two years, subject to renewal. Indeed, the states pointed out that many of the grantees have known only the United States to be their home for the majority of their lives. In addition to protecting grantees from being arrested solely due to their immigration status, DACA allowed its grantees to receive public benefits like social security, to enroll in higher education institutions, and to access other benefits like opening up a bank account and buying a car. All throughout, the federal government enforcing DACA clearly represented that it would not use the information obtained in the application process to enforce immigration policy.

The states argued that these grantees will now lose their protections and be at risk for deportation, especially since the grantees provided the federal government with sensitive information in their applications. In light of the DHS memorandum, the federal government will immediately stop accepting new DACA applications. Further, it will only issue renewals for grantees whose terms expire before March 5, 2018, provided they apply for renewal by October 5, 2018. The states highlighted that in addition to the losses DACA grantees will suffer, state and local economies, as well as many higher education institutions, have come to rely on the skills and productivity of the grantees and will therefore also suffer. The states pointed out that over half of DACA grantees are of Mexican origin and thus ending DACA "is a culmination of President’s Trump’s oft-stated commitments...to punish and disparage people with Mexican roots." Further, the states argued that the grantees' sensitive information is at risk since President Trump took "affirmative steps to reduce the privacy protections applicable to DACA data" with a January 2017 Executive Order directing all agencies to "'exclude persons who are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents from the protections of the Privacy Act regarding personally identifiable information.'” Meanwhile, the states pointed out that the DHS Memorandum did not provide assurance to DACA grantees or direction to USCIS and ICE that this information cannot be used for the purpose of immigration policy enforcement.

The plaintiffs are the states of New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Connecticut, Delaware, District Of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia. They argued that ending DACA violates Fifth Amendment equal protection and due process, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Regulatory Flexibility Act.

The case was assigned to Judge Allyne R. Ross on Sept. 6, and reassigned to Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis and Magistrate Judge James Orenstein the next day.

The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on Oct. 4, adding the state of Colorado as a plaintiff. The amended complaint also added an equitable estoppel cause of action.

On Oct. 6, the defendants filed the administrative record, available here, which included a series of government documents pertaining to DACA from its inception to the decision to rescind it. In the related case Batalla Vidal v. Baran, the plaintiffs then moved to compel the defendants to complete the administrative record, arguing that the defendants did not produce all documents leading to the rescission. Specifically, they omitted related documents that Acting Secretary Duke did not directly review. The judge in Batalla, who is the same judge here, granted the motion on Oct. 19 and compelled the defendants in both cases to complete the administrative record.

The defendants appealed to the Second Circuit, which granted an emergency motion for a stay of discovery and record supplementation in the district court pending consideration by the Second Circuit on Oct. 20.

On Oct. 27, the defendants moved to dismiss the case, arguing that the rescission is an enforcement action "presumed immune from judicial review" and that the government provided ample explanation for the rescission based on DAPA's enjoinment. On Nov. 9, the court granted in part and denied in part the motion. The court dismissed the plaintiffs' claims that policy changes in how information provided for DACA applications could be used violate both due process and equitable estoppel. The court also dismissed the plaintiffs' claim that the government violated due process by failing to provide individualized notice of the rescission because the plaintiffs lacked standing. In both cases, the court argued that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring these claims. The court found, however, that the plaintiffs had standing to challenge the DACA rescission. The court reserved ruling on the government's motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim and denied all other parts of its motion.

On Dec. 15, the plaintiffs filed for preliminary injunction, seeking to enjoin the government from rescinding DACA.

Meanwhile, a series of entities filed amicus briefs. The following entities filed in support of the plaintiffs: United We Dream, over 100 companies, educational justice organizations, Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, law enforcement leaders, workers' organizations, legal services organizations, New York University, the Mexican government, dozens of religious organizations, immigration nonprofits, various U.S. cities and counties, and civil rights organizations.

On Dec. 27, the Second Circuit denied the government's petition for mandamus and lifted the district court's stay on discovery. Seeking to appeal the court's Nov. 9, 2017 decision, two days later, the government moved to stay further supplementation of the administrative record in the district court in light of its pending filing of a "petition for writ of mandamus challenging the scope of the administrative record and discovery in these matters." The court granted the motion on Dec. 30 pending consideration of the government's motion for certification of interlocutory appeal of the Nov. 9 order. On Jan. 8, the court granted the government's motion for certification of interlocutory appeal and stayed further proceedings pending resolution in the Second Circuit. The government appealed the Nov. 9 order that day.

On Jan. 31, 2018, the Second Circuit ordered that the petitions for leave to appeal be held in abeyance while the district court resolved the motions for injunctive relief and dismissal.

On Feb. 13, 2018, the district court granted the preliminary injunction, holding that the government had not provided a legally sufficient basis for ending the DACA program. The court found that while the government could end DACA, the question was if they had provided the necessary legally adequate reasons for the rescission. The court found that the decision to end the program was based on an erroneous conclusion that DACA was unconstitutional and violated the APA and INA, and that this conclusion in turn relied on the "plainly incorrect factual premise" that courts have found the DAPA program to have "constitutional defects." The court also found that the purported reason for rescission was contradictory in that the government claimed DACA must end because it was unconstitutional and yet also provided for a wind-down period in which certain DACA renewal applications would continue to be adjudicated. As a result, the court held that the rescission was arbitrary and capricious and enjoined the government from ending the program on a nationwide basis pending the court's decision on the merits of the case. In the same order, the court also denied the plaintiffs' motion for class certification as moot.

The government filed notice on Feb. 20 that it had appealed the preliminary injunction to the Second Circuit.

Implementation of Executive Order 13768, "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States
The Washington PostDate: May 22, 2017 By: Jefferson Sessions (U.S. Department of Justice)[ Detail ][ External Link ]

Executive Order 13768: Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States
Federal RegisterDate: Jan. 25, 2017 By: President Donald Trump (Office of the President)[ Detail ][ PDF ][ External Link ]

Amicus Brief of Partnership for Educational Justice, DelawareCan: the Delaware Campaign for Achievement Now, HawaiiKidsCan, NewMexicoKidsCan, and Virginia Excels in Support of Plaintiffs' Motion for a Preliminary Injunction [ECF# 133]

Amicus Brief of the City of Los Angeles, 27 Additional Cities and Counties, the National League of Cities and the United States Conference of Mayors in Support of Plaintiffs' Motions for Preliminary Injunction [ECF# 172]

Brief of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Anti-Defamation League, and Other Civil Rights and Social Justice Organizations, as Amici Curiae in Support of the Plaintiff States' Motion for Preliminary Injunction [ECF# 174]